“TALKING. 
‘POINTS — 


MINIATURE | 

encyclopedia of infor- 
mation in regard to India. 
Intended for pastors, Cen- 


tenary workers and others 
who have use for a compact 
reference work from which 
may be quickly obtained sig- 
nificant facts for incorporation 
into missionary addresses. 


FILE THIS WHERE YOU 
CAN FIND IT 


IN?D ae 


Talking Points 


Y5 

@> 
This is indeed India; the land of fabulous 
wealth and fabulous poverty, of palaces and 
hovels, the country of a hundred nations and a — 
hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two 
million gods. The one land that all men desire 
to see, and having seen once, would not give up 
that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the 

globe.—Mark Twain. 
El &) 


THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE 


India, about one-half as large as the United 
States, has three times as many people, 315,- 
000,000. (3) 


‘hese people are of many races and religions. 
‘There are a score of languages, each of which is 
spoken by ten to twenty million people. In 
addition there are several hundred dialects. In 
' the order of numerical strength religiously they 
are: Hindus, Mohammedan, Buddhists, Animists, 
Christians, and many other cults. 

[=] 

Eighty per cent of the people are farmers, who 
live in little villages for protection. They scratch 
the top of the soil with antiquated wooden plows, 
and millions are always hungry in a rich land 
which will raise two crops a year. 


2 


The crops depend largely upon the monsoons, 
or rain-bringing winds,. When these fail, the 
crops fail, and there is famine. 


Modern methods of transportation and distri- 
bution and the irrigation schemes of the British 
government are doing much to lessen the danger 


of famine. 
Eo) 


THE OLD RELIGIONS 


India is essentially a religious land. 
E] 

There are 66,000,000 Mohammedans in India, 
but India is the only country the Moslems ever 
conquered without converting, and the mass of 
the people are Hindus. 

[=] 

The Hindus have more than 30,000,000 gods. 
Devotees wear upon their foreheads distinctive 
“god marks” to show which of the deities they 
follow. 

[3] 

In India there are more than five million “‘holy 

men,” or religious mendicants, who live entirely 


by begging. m 


Religion and the social order are inextricably 
mixed, for out of religion has grown caste, the 
governing principle of Hindu life. 

[s) 

Originally there were four castes, Brahmans 
ot priests, warriors, merchants and servants. 

isj 

Now castes have multiplied and divided until 
there are more than 3,000 castes and an infinity 


3 


of sub-castes whose members cannot eat together, 
drink together, or intermarry. 
& 

Below all castes are the 60,000,000 outcastes 
who have no religious privileges, are forbidden 
to enter the temples or to speak the name of 
God. Their touch or even their shadow is pol- 
lution to a caste man. 

i) 

Caste restrictions and the desire for favorable 
family connections have led to the custom of 
early marriage. Half of the Hindu girls are mar- 
ried before they are fifteen, and hundreds of 
thousands before they are twelve. 

G) 

The position of women is low. “There be many 
sects in India,” says an ancient proverb, “but 
upon two main points they be all agreed—the 
sacredness of the cow and the depravity of 
woman.” 

8 


SANITATION 


The people of India know little of sanitation. 

ma ) 

The most pious act of Hinduism is a pilgrim- 
age to one of the sacred rivers where thousands 
of people crowd into the impure waters to bathe 
and drink. 


Cholera and the plague have been regarded as 
inevitable and have killed thousands every year. 
Ignorance and superstition make it hard for 
modern medicine to heal India. In one village, 
for instance, the Hindus died of the plague rather 


4 


than be inoculated, for the serum was made of 
the blood of cows, and the cow is sacred to 
Hindus. a 


Missionaries introduced modern medicine into 
India. The British government has done much 
to aid the work and has built many hospitals, 
but still half a million towns and villages are 
without an educated resident physician. 


Women have had a large part in medical work 
in India, for they alone can reach the women 
secluded in the zenanas. 

C 

In 1870 there were no women physicians in 
the entire East, and many people regarded the 
idea of sending them as unpractical and danger- 
ous. The first to go out was Dr. Clara Swain of 
the Methodist Woman’s Foreign Missionary 
Society. Now more women than men go to 
India as medical missionaries. 


8 
EDUCATION 


India is a land of illiterates. Throughout the 
land only six persons out of a hundred can read. 


The government is establishing many schools, 
but the task of educating India would require a 
million and a half teachers. Caste further com- 
plicates the school problem, for no caste man 
will teach outcaste children. 

& 

Native Christians have a higher percentage of 
literates than either Hindus or Mohammedans, 
but they are in danger of losing this distinction, 


5 


for the number of Christians is increasing faster 
than the number of mission schools, and Chris- 
tian children are now growing up almost as ig- 
norant as the children around them. 


i} 

Our Isabella Thoburn College at Lucknow was 
the first college for women in the East. 

f=) 

Methodism has 40,000 pupils in its 1,500 
schools of all grades, but this does not begin to 
meet the need, for there are in India 60,000 
Methodist children with no schools at all. To 
educate them would require 1,500 additional 
teachers. a 
MODERN CHANGES 


Under modern conditions the old India of caste 
and superstition is changing. 


‘ol 

When the Bombay street railway was pro- 
jected, everyone predicted failure. ‘You can 
never get high caste people to ride. They are 
too afraid of pollution.” But the railway adver- 
tised free rides for the first two weeks. Curiosity 
overcame caste, and everybody rode. Once they 
got the habit they have kept it up, and trains 
and street cars succeed in spite of caste. 

[2] 

Low caste men, who in the old days could not 
even draw water from the same well as the Brah- 
mans, now daily sell them such modern products 
as crackers, patent medicine, ice and soda water. 

i) 

The world war had a great influence in over- 
coming prejudice. Men found that they could 
cross the “black water’ without displeasing the 


6 


gods, and from daily contact with Europeans they 
learned much. Nothing in Europe impressed one 
Sikh soldier as much as the cows. “Two buckets 
full of milk at a time,” he said, “and it is rich 
and yellow and full of cream. We must have the 
same kind of cows in India.” 
E & 
THE MASS MOVEMENT 


One of the most significant changes in modern 
India is the religious change. 


fe] 
People by the thousands are becoming dis- 
satished with their old religions and are turning 
to Christianity in a great “mass movement.” 


i} 

Among the outcastes, where the Methodist 
Church doe: most of its work, whole villages are 
asking for baptism. 

O) 

Last year 35,000 were taken into the church, 
but 150,000 otherswere refused admission because 
of the lack of Christian pastors and leaders. 

1) 

Hindu reform societies are becoming alarmed 
over this movement toward Christianity and are 
promising the outcastes social and religious recog- 
nition if they will not give up Hinduism. 

fz] 

If the churches do not take advantage of their 
great opportunity in India, some other religion 
will, and the mass movement will be turned away 
from Christianity. 

{] 

India is the “now or never land” for the 

church. 


. Published by 
‘The Centenary Commission 
of the Board of Foreign Missions 
Methodist Episcopal Church 


150 Fifth Avenue 
New York 


1919 


